https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=300941&post_id=163177548&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=rovhk&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0NjUxMDE4NCwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTYzMTc3NTQ4LCJpYXQiOjE3NDY5NzM5NzYsImV4cCI6MTc0OTU2NTk3NiwiaXNzIjoicHViLTMwMDk0MSIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.zPy4vPsg5Z8M7AZP0dYUmZUjlMv1-6KN9jFFVUQP7FI
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The destruction of democracy and the creation of exile communities go hand in hand. As I recount in this Jan. 2025 essay, I first became interested in Fascism because I grew up in a town that had been home to many exiles from Adolf Hitler’s regime, and exile became a subtheme of my book Strongmen.
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Now America is beginning its own cycle of people leaving as the government takes away our freedoms, criminalizes opposition, and persecutes immigrants, trans people, and others. The international student Abdelrahman Elgendy, who was a political prisoner in Egypt before he came to the United States, recently left “to escape the possibility of the same fate.”
The author of today’s essay feels it is no longer possible to stay safely in the United States as a transgender person and is preparing to leave. As an academic with a background in econometric forecasting of democratic decline, civil war, and genocide, they have written about fascism for over 30 years. They wish to remain anonymous. This essay excerpts a longer piece that appeared in DAME, and appears with DAME’s permission.
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My family is fleeing the country.
We are not doing this in a panic; this is an orderly retreat from an unwinnable situation. We are slowly but surely packing up and emptying out our house. Instead of planning summer vacation and planting flowers, we're tackling a mountain of overdue home repairs, painting, carpeting, and deep cleaning. The house we loved, and hoped to spend our lives in, needs to look its best so that we can sell it for someone else to enjoy.
Allow me to introduce myself, albeit anonymously. I have spent my academic and professional career studying and forecasting democratic decline, fascism, and genocide. I'm also transgender. My heart wants to stay; it aches when I watch my kids pick and choose through beloved childhood belongings, trying not to cry as they decide what will come with them to our smaller future home. My head, however, knows that it is time to leave. Especially given the bleak future we all face if we stay.
Successful Consolidation of Power
The Trump administration has largely consolidated all governmental power within the White House and DOGE. Congress has yielded the power of the purse to Trump and DOGE, and will not attempt to resist his usurpation of their vital power to allocate funds. Congressional budgets have become effectively advisory in nature, with the Executive Branch holding veto power over any payments made by the government.
The other Constitutional check on Presidential power should be the courts, but top people in the Executive Branch, including Stephen Miller, JD Vance, and Elon Musk, are calling on the administration to simply ignore the laundry list of injunctions, stays, restraining orders, and adverse judgments that courts have made against Trump's blatantly unconstitutional acts. If he does so—and if the DOJ, FBI, and US Marshals refuse to carry out court orders—the judicial branch becomes powerless.
Trump’s own party, which controls both the House and Senate, is too terrified of him and his base to put up any kind of resistance. They will go along with whatever he says, no matter how contradictory or ludicrous his statements. Corporations, law firms, the media, and universities are all obeying in advance. Employees and students are being silenced. Any mention of transgender people is being eliminated.
Extreme Risk of Transgender Genocide
Everything I know about the history of genocide and of the Holocaust points to this regime attempting some form of genocide against the trans community. Trump’s own campaign website more or less directly stated how they intend to carry out the removal of transgender people from public life and into federal custody. On top of that, trans people are about .5% of the population, roughly the same percentage as the Jewish population in pre-1933 Germany. This puts them in the political genocide "butter zone”: a small group that society is aware of as different, that can be blamed for everything, and whose eradication won’t cripple the economy.
The architects of Project 2025 are everywhere within the administration, and have largely succeeded in implementing other Project 2025 policies aimed at eliminating transgender people from various parts of society (e.g. removing all reference to trans people in federal documents, creating federal bathroom bans, revoking accurate passports, banning them from the military, etc.). It seems only a matter of time before they begin actively pursuing their explicitly described end state.
Elon Musk bears a deep personal hatred of transgender people because he had a child (Vivian) who was assigned male at birth but now identifies as female, and is very much alive today. Musk published the following on X:
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There is no question that Musk is referring to transgender people here. He is vowing that they will die, and he will lead the charge. The richest man in the world, and arguably the most powerful man in America, has made a personal pledge to eradicate transgender people. This is not a statement taken out of context, or a thing said in jest. This is an extremely serious threat, and one that is already being carried through by the administration.
Musk and DOGE’s unfettered access to federal databases offers a near foolproof way to identify transgender people. Attached to everyone’s social security account is a marker that indicates their status with selective service. Unlike most gender markers, this one cannot be changed via any administrative process, and is exclusively for people assigned male at birth. If other documents indicate a different gender or sex than their selective service SSA marker, they can be flagged as transgender. There is nothing in any of their documentation identifying them as their sex assigned at birth, except the selective service SSA marker.
Elon Musk has full access to the SSA database. It is a terrible risk to remain in the US when people who want you dead have such power.
I can do more elsewhere
You might wonder why I am writing this anonymously. The short answer is that freedom of speech in the United States is already dead; if you haven’t noticed this yet it's because it hasn't affected you personally. The Trump administration has made it clear to companies with federal contracts that if any of their employees say anything bad about the administration, those companies will lose said contracts. Obeying in advance, these companies are informing their employees that their continued employment is contingent on remaining entirely silent, or saying only nice things publicly about the regime.
I used to be a prominent writer, but when the Freedom Caucus gave this exact ultimatum to my employer a while ago I had to disappear off the literary grid. As a person who is former military, I’m also being threatened with being recalled to active duty and court martialed if I say anything publicly.
I understand that I can escape far more easily than most. I get that other people have fewer resources. I know that rules for navigation are difficult. I know that some people feel morally obligated to stick it out and fight to the bitter end, whatever that means to them. What I am saying is that if you are a transgender person who has the opportunity and the option of getting out, then for your own safety, you should.
I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn’t thoroughly convinced that I can accomplish nothing by staying, the risk of genocide is extreme, and that I can serve some greater purpose elsewhere. I make this decision with sadness and reluctance: I am saying a final goodbye to my country and what is left of my family.
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